A cry in the woods
by UnluckyAmulet
Summary: Most people would run from the Grim, or even a wolf, but she was not like most people. Sirius/Luna.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Written because I think there need to be more Siriuna fics. (I know there's a MINOR plothole in this oneshot, since Luna is in her second year at this point, but Dennis Creevey manages to get into Hogsmeade in book Five, and he's only in his second year during that time too, so I exercised a little artistic license here. Sorry about that.)

Enjoy!

* * *

They called him the Grim, the wizards or witches that managed to catch a glimpse of him. Others thought he was a merely figment of wild imaginations, and some just concluded he was a stray that had people confused.

He didn't care what they called him, as long as it wasn't by his real name.

This was until he met her, of course.

She was perched on one of the low-slung branches of a conker tree. The Shrieking Shack had never been a place people liked to linger near for long, so Sirius had found himself intrigued by her presence. The girl seemed utterly at peace and completely oblivious to her less then welcoming surroundings. Her dark blonde hair fluttered every so often in the light breeze that stirred around the village. Despite his intrigue, Sirius had hesitated- by her appearance; she seemed to be only about in her second year. If the sight of his animagus form unnerved grown men and women, then surely she would scream and then-

"Hello."

The girl's voice suddenly interrupted his reverie. With an uncomfortable start, Sirius realised she was looking straight at him, despite the fact he was half-hidden in the wild undergrowth of the plants near the shack.

"Oh, don't move," Luna said, as Sirius opted to slink away.

Taken aback, he looked back at her, and it was then that he noticed a sketchpad perched precariously on her knees. A piece of charcoal smudging her fingers, the blonde tilted her head to one side, examining her picture with her protuberant blue eyes. Then, apparently settling on something, she picked it up and turned it around, holding it up for him to see. Sirius, in spite of himself, peered at it.

Drawn with smudgy black charcoal, Sirius saw himself, a large black dog, his eyes staring straight out, a strange expression of pride and defiance lingering in them. His expression, caught on paper, was so familiar to him that he was temporarily thrown off guard. It had been a long time since he had properly seen what he looked like, and it was unnerving to see himself drawn with such accuracy. Sirius felt, to his surprise, a twinge of what felt like disappointment when the girl put the picture back in her schoolbag, which seemed to be bulging with very strange objects.

"It's not quite done yet." remarked the girl serenely, pulling a new object out of her bag, "But as my first try, I suppose that it's all right."

Sirius blinked, wondering whether this girl was a little touched in the head, but that worry was promptly forgotten when he saw what she was holding.

"You're quite thin, you know," remarked the blonde, pulling a chicken leg from the bag she was holding, "Here you go."

The chicken leg landed on the leaf-strewn floor with a thud and Sirius fell upon in ravenously, the scent wafted tantalisingly toward him. He was so intent on getting every little scrap of meat that he hardly noticed a bigger thud beside him as the girl calmly jumped down from her perch with a strangely awkward grace. Placing her bag beside her and settling against the trees sturdy trunk, she watched Sirius eat as though he was the most interesting thing she had seen all day. Maybe he was. After all, it's not every day you meet something that looks suspiciously like the omen of death.

"You're quite a nice dog, aren't you?" the blonde said, apparently either ignoring or oblivious to the fact she was technically speaking to a dog. "At first I thought you must be a Kipchaz, you know, but I suppose that some things are just-"

The girl was interrupted by a gaggle of girls walking past her, a little further up the path from her. One of them spotted her, and nudged her friends, giggling.

"Oh, look, Luna's made a friend," she remarked, throwing back her head. "It must be nice talking to something that doesn't understand all the ridiculous things you say, Loony. I expect you feel almost normal!"

"Loony, loony Lovegood," chimed in one of the other girls, softly.

Her friends joined in as they walked on, their spiteful giggles echoing after them. Sirius let out a low growl and, despite trying to look unbothered, the girls hurried on, walking just a little too quickly. The briefest urge to bark struck Sirius, but he resisted. Luna looked completely unperturbed by the chanting and giggling, but Sirius felt an odd pang in the vicinity of his chest. When he looked back at Luna, who gazed thoughtfully after the girls, he suddenly realised it was pity. Luna, however, merely glanced back at him.

"Some things are just...misunderstood," she said, looking quietly satisfied now she had completed her thought.

Luna smiled another one of her vague smiles. Sirius, having been given full custody of the remaining chicken, decided that Luna Lovegood was most definitely mad. Licking his grease-slicked paw, however, he found that he didn't mind in the slightest.

In fact, Sirius did return to Hogsmeade the next weekend, hoping he could find Luna again. Perhaps this was fuelled by the uncomfortably familiar ache in his gut, but he had also accepted the possibility that he was lonely. Indeed, she was the first person he had met since Azkaban who didn't draw back in fear at the very sight of him.

And she also seemed to be equally as lonely as he was.

* * *

"I think you need a name."

Sirius, who had been indulgently allowing Luna to scratch him behind his ears, eyed her with mild curiosity. As the weekends drifted on by, Sirius had begun to grow accustomed to Luna saying strange and faintly humorous things. Luna regarded Sirius for a moment, head tilted to one side contemplatively.

"How about...snuffles?"

Sirius stared at her. _Snuffles_? _Was she _joking?

"Yes, I think Snuffles will do quite nicely." commented Luna, serenely.

Sirius merely sniffed, too sleepy to bother trying to communicate his indignation to her, not that she'd probably notice it anyway. He could live with Snuffles, he supposed.

Just as long as she kept bringing him chicken.

* * *

She just announced it, one day, as though she had been waiting all year to tell him this.

"Soon, we will have to say goodbye to each other." She informed Sirius, perched, as usual, in a low-slung branch of a tree.

Sirius blinked up at her, feeling suddenly panicked. _She couldn't know...there's no way she could possibly know...could she?_"After all, term's nearly over," Luna went on, and he relaxed. "But you know, sometimes I feel like this is only the beginning. So I'm not sad, and you don't need to be, either."

She smiled at him, so guileless and endearing, that Sirius felt an unexpected rush of affection for this girl. This strange, sweet girl, who has no idea who he is, doesn't seem to care _what_ he is, and she had become, however unwittingly, one of his only friends here in twelve years. The only other creature that doesn't hide from him is that peculiar ginger cat, the one who knows, straight away, what needs to be done.

"I think," Luna added thoughtfully, staring up at the cloudless blue sky, nearly mauve as it slowly creeps towards dusk, "that we'll meet each other again, somehow. It just seems right."

She absently brushes her small, pale fingers across his black pelt.

"Don't you agree?" she adds, dreamily. She could speak to anything and still sound exactly like that- like she has no fear at all in the world, only curiosity.

Sirius merely growled softly, although strangely, he found that Luna's words really didn't seem all that unlikely to him.

She smiled at him again, and he knew, intuitively, that no words needed to be spoken.

She understood him perfectly.

* * *

A word or two would be nice. :)


End file.
